The VersionOne 10th Annual Survey

I was so happy when I got the "VersionOne 10th Annual State of Agile Report" delivered to my inbox. They do an outstanding job of surveying thousands of practitioners (3,880 to be precise) and leaders in the industry to compile lots of infographics that illustrate various Agile related metrics. The metrics that caught my eye where around the topics of scaling agility. Here's an interesting one:

Having a consistent process rated at the top of the list. This does not surprise me since I've seen many companies that say they are practicing Agile (some for over 5 years) yet they don't have a consistent way of synchronizing the planning of multiple teams. Multi-team planning of Program Increment (PI) planning is the sweet spot of SAFe®.

I was also very glad to see the recognition of the importance of Agile trainers and consultants to the success of scaled agile adoption. The ROI from using a certified SAFe® consultants is unusually high since the ROI is also at scale. A team of SAFe® consultants (experienced SPC or SPCT) can significantly raise the engagement, productivity and quality level of an entire organization over the course of a year.

The survey has many more interesting infographics. Here are a few more interesting facts:

More than 82% of companies have distributed teams. This is up from 35% three years earlier.

68% of respondents use Scrum and XP as their Agile practice of choice.

Most organizations (57%) use velocity as a measure of success.

SAFe® adoption has had a significant jump. 27% of respondents are using SAFe® for scaling agility. Most companies (72%) are still using some for of Scrum of Scrums for this purpose.